


Their Agreement

by InkSiren



Series: Sharpe's Fanfic [13]
Category: Sharpe (TV), Sharpe - All Media Types, Sharpe Series - Bernard Cornwell
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Gen, Heartbeats, Hearts, Team as Family, Worry, looting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28185720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSiren/pseuds/InkSiren
Summary: Should the worst happen, they talked about a plan.AKA: Patrick has to pretend to loot Richard's body as a cover.
Series: Sharpe's Fanfic [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034673
Kudos: 8





	Their Agreement

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have an excuse, just an addiction.

They’d made a deal, should this happen, but Patrick is still shaking when he goes to fulfill it. 

“If one of us goes down, the other needs to loot the body. Keep up appearances. No real deserters care about each other that much, and if I go the mission still needs to pull through.”

Patrick doesn’t know why Richard assumed he’d be the one to go, but damn him, curse him he’d been right. He has gone down, a sudden shot and a horrible jerking gurgle of surprised breath punched out of him right before he just goes limp and Patrick feels himself acting on obedient instinct, the friend buried deep inside in agony.

He manages to sneer, to drop to his knees beside Richard’s body and start going through pockets, making a show of having hated his best friend while he’s at it. They’re on a wire here, bayonet all but in his back already and if he doesn’t make a convincing act they’ll be meeting God together. 

Or, at least Patrick will. He doesn’t think about Richard. Can’t, or else it gets difficult to breathe. 

He isn’t supposed to risk any kind of emotion that may give him away, but his body is acting without his consent and the pieces of himself are fractured and for a moment, he feels the friend take over. Denial is that man’s only thought, and Patrick finds himself muttering through his teeth, a seething worry churning through them like froth. 

“Come on you bastard I know you still have it,” he hisses, pulling apart silver buttons and slipping a hand beneath Richard’s coat. He feels around the chest still aggressively putting off heat, closing his eyes as he searches. He has seen his Major’s heart beating it’s so honest, and he thinks that surely that must make it easy to feel.

The thought is a sick mixture of hope and despair. Hope: he should be able to verify Richard is still alive while pretending to loot his cooling body. Despair: Should he have not found it by now? Surely the rush of battle would still be burning hot and useless in Richard’s veins, forcing his heart into that thundering every soldier knows. 

“Come on, come on you miserable rat bastard,” Patrick spits, fingers dancing more frantically across Richard’s ribs, feeling between them like he’s digging in the dirt for fallen shillings. “I know you still have it. You must.”

When he finally feels movement, he has to steel his spine against sagging in a crippling, incriminating relief. 

He stills, flattening his palm, letting out a long breath and pressing his hand in like he can capture Richard’s very life force and take it away with him for safe keeping. He remembers his threat from months back and wishes again he could loot Richard’s heart and carry his spirit to safety somewhere far from here. 

He cannot, and so he just digs a little deeper and tries to memories the heartbeat he can feel still burning bright in the shuddering chest of Richard Sharpe. He’s injured then, but far from taken out. So long as that heart continues to live, Richard will heal. 

Patrick’s seen him come back from the dead before, and he still believes in miracles. 

All the same, he could do with some reassurance and he hopes, at least for a few hours, that his fingertips will remember the beat. When he finally has to pull away, finally has to rip the shillings from his friend’s hip as an excuse, he curls his fingers into his palm and tries desperately to memorize his major’s heartbeat. 

It seems strange, to have to put effort into remembering something so constant, so universal, so simple, but he thinks that as simple and predictable as a heartbeat is it must also be unique to each man and maybe it’s fanciful but he thinks he would know the difference in Richard from his own or from Harris or from Hagman or even from Ramona. 

And so he tries, tries to hold onto something that has nothing so easy as a word or marker he can memorize, only sensation. 

As if, by holding onto it he can tether Richard to this world. As if, by remembering it he can promise that they’ll both survive this and meet again on the other side with stories to tell. 

As he stands, and looks down with an expression of contempt, he prays over Richard and closes his fist tight, feeling the pulse of a heart not his own trapped inside.


End file.
